No Choice
by RobinObsession
Summary: Three years after the War ends, Mai and Zuko are happily married, with a five-month-old baby girl. At least in Zuko's eyes. When Mai attempts the unthinkable, what can the Firelord do? Zuko/Mai, for now.


The sound of crying woke me up.

Not the anguished sobbing of my insane sister. Not the soft tears of my uncle the day we were united. An infant's cry – a cry of confusion and helplessness. I was awake instantly, years of battle responsible for my honed senses. I blinked, forcing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then I saw it.

My wife of three years – the wife I adored fiercely and went through so much with. Our child – the sweet baby girl we named Ira a scant five months ago – in her arms. The scene looked peaceful to one who took a mere glance. It was a good thing I did more than glance. The dagger in Mai's hand poised over Ira's heart was not peaceful in the least, nor was the insane look on my wife's face. My sister's face flashes in my mind for a moment, and I fear that Mai is headed down the same path.

"Mai! No!" I scream, out of bed in mere milliseconds. Then the guards are there, drawn by my screams, and I have to blink again as the room is filled with blinding torchlight. Mai has to squint too, successfully distracting her long enough for me to grab the wailing child from her and clasp Ira to my chest. I had no idea what was going through my seemingly docile wife's head, and I didn't have it in me to care before the pride of my life was out of danger.

It was Mai's turn to scream, the sound a mixture of rage and helpless frustration. She resisted for a moment, and then let the guards disarm her and trap her hands behind her back. Not blessed with the ability to firebend, this was enough to rend her truly impotent. Her head hung in defeat, long, jet black hair hiding her face.

"Mai…" I whispered, only vaguely aware of Ira's tiny hands fisting in my night shirt and her crying decreasing to a whimper full of confusion. "…Why?" I asked, wanting to join my little girl in her confused whimpering. Where was my sweet, laughing wife?

Then she did laugh, but it only made my lips press together in a tight, white line. It was a short bark of deranged amusement; I watch the guards tense and know they've tightened their grip on her wrists. They're silent statues, waiting for the Firelord's orders. But I'm not giving any yet.

"You're a sad, sad creature, Zuko," Mai begins, her voice dripping with rage-filled venom. The guards start to move, but I hold up a hand and they still. I want to hear this, even though my heart is already beginning to crack.

"You loved me for three long years, not even counting the two we were apart. Exclusively and completely, I was yours and you were mine."

"I still love you! You're still mine and I'm still yours!" I interrupt desperately. This isn't going well.

"Liar!" Her hands are restricted, but she takes a step towards me as if wanting to make a move. The guards yank her back. "Ever since that...that _thing_ was born, you've dropped me like I was trash! Now it's never _my_ name on your lips, but _hers_!" Unable to point, Mai sends an icy glare at the innocent child I'm cradling against my chest. I halfway turn my body as if to shield her from the daggers of Mai's eyes.

"She's our daughter, Mai! Can't I love you both?" I chew my bottom lip, my face shrouded in worry and heartbreak.

"I thought you could. But apparently you can't. So one of us had to go," Mai says, a frightening degree of resigned calmness about her. Her head is held high, her steel grey eyes hard and unfeeling. My amber gaze and hunched, protective posture feels vulnerable in comparison.

"Neither of you are going anywhere," I say firmly. The guard to my right awkwardly clears his throat. I recognize the captain of the night watch as he shifts from foot to foot.

"Sir, the attempted murder of your daughter is high treason…" he tells me, carefully avoiding my eyes.

Sparks light on my fingertips, and I carefully control myself. "She is my wife, Captain," I remind him.

The unfortunate man glues his gaze to my bare feet, and I imagine he's wringing his hands behind his back because I notice his arms moving. Mai has gone silent, and so has our baby.

"We must still follow protocol, sir…" he says, his voice barely audible. I let an angry breath of fire out of my mouth, startling the nearest guards enough to make them step backwards in alarm.

"Take her away, then," I growl out through gritted teeth. "And bring me my uncle."

I feel Mai's hate filled glare burning on my back as they lead her out.

What feels like an eternity later, my uncle comes into the room, yawning. His gold-lined, red satin robe is taut around his vast stomach, and trails the floor due to his rather lacking height. I don't smile as I usually do when I see him, and his eyes fill with worry as he frowns. He obviously hasn't been told what happened.

But as usual, just seeing him is enough to lift a bit of the weight off of my shoulders, and I sit on the edge of my bed and sigh. My dark golden eyes are drawn to Ira's face as she spots her namesake and gurgles happily, hands reaching out for him. Wordlessly, the former General Iroh approaches and gently extracts the child from my tight grip to hold her. She pulls his snowy white beard and giggles.

I'm staring at my hands in my lap when I feel the mattress dip on my left to accept his added weight. "Zuko…" he murmurs; I feel his worried, fatherly gaze on me.

A moment passes in silence, then in clipped, short sentences I tell him what happened. Every detail, from the moment I hear Ira's first cry to the feeling of passing on part of my burden when he walks in. My hands are clenching and unclenching in the fabric of the robe I'd thought to put on, and I stare at them unwaveringly as I tell the story, reliving it in my head. My voice breaks when I tell my uncle what the captain said, but I make it to the end of the tale before tears spill out of my right eye, the left unable to cry.

"High treason, uncle…" I repeat, squeezing my eyes shut. High treason is only punishable by execution.

I feel him stand up, and I raise my head to watch as he lays Ira in her cradle before coming back to me. His arms wrap around my torso warmly, and I'm helpless to do anything but return the sorrowful embrace. I cry into his shoulder, but no comforting words escape his lips. He knows what high treason means as well as I do. He also knows I have the power to stop it. I stop dampening the shoulder of his robe and just lean my forehead against the joint, feeling his fingers in my hair as I stare blankly. He is the first to speak.

"You can't, Zuko," he murmurs, as if he'd been reading my mind. My hands fist in his robe like Ira had done to me such a short time ago.

"Why not?" I ask, biting into my lower lip again. "Why not?" I repeat, and my fists are so tight on his robe I'm sure the fine cloth will tear.

"If you let one case go, there will be people lining up at your window at night for the chance to try and kill Ira. That's why not." His words are clipped and matter-of-fact, and I can tell it nearly kills him to tell me. But I know he's right. The Fire Nation is not fond of the idea of having a female Firelord once I am gone. And Ira, being my first-born, has the claim to the throne. Dead, Ira poses no threat and forces me to produce another heir, which the Fire Nation will hope is a boy.

Still, I think of my wife and a choked sob escapes my lips. "I can't, uncle…I can't watch her die…I can't give the order…"

A bit of the war general Iroh once was shows when he takes me by the shoulders and pushes me arm's length away from him. He stares me in the face, his mouth a grim line but his eyes dry.

"You must, Zuko. You have no choice."


End file.
